Sunday, September 09, 2012

While those that are still watching the Indians’ season play
out find themselves either looking for reasons to hope for the future, for the
Tribe to play the role of spoiler, or have already gone into full-blown
“fantanking” mode (in the one sport in which draft position does not greatly
impact immediate performance…in most cases), the manner in which this team fell
apart over the course of better than a month still has most of the North Coast
shell-shocked. The team went from competitive,
entertaining, and compelling to dreadful, unwatchable, and embarrassing in the
amount of time that some people take summer vacations as the descent was swift
and the collapse was complete.

With soon-to-be-ex-Indians’ closer Chris Perez dominating
the (Indians) news this week, I find it unusual that a couple of months ago he
was laying into the fans for not buying into this pre-collapse team – that was
in 1st place at the time – because people weren’t believing that the
team’s success was real…while not supporting them at the turnstiles. Now that the collapse is complete, he has
moved the periscope to set his targets on the people that constructed that same
team that he wanted everyone to buy into just a few months ago. As the wind blows and as the targets move, so
do the shots that come out of Perez’s barrel.
That’s not to say that what Perez said (or has said) is fundamentally
incorrect, but for as much as his comments have seemed like “someone look at me
or listen to me…please” moments, because of the timing of his comments, they
were largely ignored on the grand scale because of the start of the Browns’
season garnering so much (unfounded, according to Perez) attention on the North
Coast and because of the death of Art Modell occupying people’s minds.

Regardless, though everyone wants to focus on what Perez
said (which contains elements of truth, if overly reductive elements of those
truths presented in the reactionary tone that feeds sports talk radio and
140-character “thoughts”), whether he should have said it (um…no, probably not
as I’m not sure what it accomplished, other than attempting to draw more
attention to HIM), whether the manager should have put a muzzle on him long ago
(certainly, and more so now given this report that he threw said manager and teammates under the bus in a conversation with Antonetti as we wait to see how THAT plays in the locker room) and why he said it (and I’m in the camp of “this is who he is,
willing to cast aspersions on anyone and everyone with no outside agenda” over
the “he’s angling for a trade that was already going to happen” bloc), the
article in which he was quoted was actually an interesting piece about
small-market teams and how they’re able to (every once in a while) compete with
the big boys.

In case you ignored the rest of the Jon-Paul Morosi piece
where C. Perez firebombed the owner’s box and Front Office, it was essentially
about how small-market teams are competing with the high-payroll teams this
season. Now, this piece gets written
every year around this time with the designated small-market team of “how to do
things right” changing from year to year, but what struck me was that it echoed
something that’s been written here for the better part of a couple of months –
that PITCHING is the separator here.
And, more than that, young starting pitching that is affordable and
under club control for multiple years is how these small-market teams are able
to compete with the teams that may have bigger payrolls, but are unable to
match the young talent in the rotation. If
you want proof that pitching is the separator this year (and it really is every
year), everyone realizes that the Indians’ team OPS of .705 puts them right
between Oakland’s team OPS of .707 and Tampa’s team OPS of .702,
right?

So while Perez’s vitriol may have received all of the
attention, this comment (in the same Morosi piece) from the Indians’ manager on
the success of the A’s struck me as Manny Acta stated the obvious (but needed
to be said) truth on small-market teams’ ability to compete and contend.

“Very impressed —
especially with their pitching staff…Pitching is everything. People know that,
but a lot of times they lose perspective on how really important pitching is.
Those guys made some really good decisions on those trades they made.

“They stocked up a lot
of good arms. I know they gave up some huge talent during the offseason, (and)
people were wondering how they could do that. But they got some good value out
of those trades. They got guys who were ready to contribute at the big-league
level right away, and it worked for them.”

Realizing that this is not ground-breaking stuff and that I
KEEP coming back to this pitching well, remember back at the beginning of the
season, when the rotation was thought to perhaps even be a STRENGTH of this
team?

Unfortunately, as LF and 1B and the failure of Grady to play
even an inning became the bane of everyone’s existence, the starting pitching
failed them, then failed them again and the performance of the rotation was
horribly complicit in the freefall that happened to a team that was in
contention when the All-Star break arrived.
To that end, Paul Hoynes passed along some interesting information on
the nuts-and-bolts of the breakdown in a piece that posits that the Tribe was
playing “Zombie Baseball” that is noteworthy for the compilation of ugliness
that Hoynes puts on paper.

A scout from another
big-league team, who saw Zombie Baseball at its height, said…“I think they also
have to make major changes in their pitching program. I didn’t see any
adjustments being made. They brought Ubaldo [Jimenez] over there to be an ace
and now he’s a No. 5. What’s going on with that?”

Talk away about how Ubaldo was on the decline when the
Indians acquired him from Colorado, but he was a 27-year-old with 137 starts
under his belt with a career 3.77 ERA PLAYING FOR COLORADO when the Indians
acquired him and what’s happened to him since that day more than 13 months ago
pretty effectively mirrors how the Indians’ organization has done more than
just fall on hard times.

To be clear here, even 13 months later, I still think the
Ubaldo trade was a good idea as a concept, in that the Indians
recognized that they needed a top-of-the-rotation starter to theoretically pair
with Masterson to make a playoff push in 2011 and have a legitimate chance in
any playoff series if they did make the playoffs last year. The fact that he was under club control
through 2013 (and maybe 2014 because of the player option) made even more sense
and the Indians acted boldly and aggressively to add a pitcher whose presence
was supposed to settle the top of the rotation, or at least add that “stopper”
that was so obviously lacking for the Indians.

That concept of adding that frontline starter didn’t
translate to reality however as Ubaldo now has a 5.44 ERA as an Indian with a
HR/9 rate that is double what he had when with Colorado and, unfortunately for
the Tribe, his numbers (the start against Detroit Wednesday included) aren’t
trending in the right direction. By that
I mean that Ubaldo’s actually getting worse as we’re moving forward. And that may lead you to the conclusion that
they chose the wrong horse to bet on, but the words of that scout are
impossible to ignore, that “they brought Ubaldo [Jimenez] over there to be an
ace and now he’s a No. 5. What’s going on with that?”

In terms of pure numbers, though the All-Star is a largely
arbitrary date in time, check out what he’s done since arriving to Cleveland:

Indians 2011

5.10 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 8.50 K/9, 3.72 BB/9, and 2.29 K/BB in
65 1/3 IP

Indians First Half
2012

4.50 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 6.77 K/9, 5.10 BB/9, and 1.32 K/BB in
102 1/3 IP

Indians Second Half 2012

7.43 ERA, 1.77 WHIP, 8.64 K/9, 4.10 BB/9 and 2.10 K/BB in 59
1/3 IP

After some cause for optimism early in the year, Jimenez has
been an unmitigated mess in the recent past and while he’s still getting strikeouts,
he’s allowed nearly two baserunners per inning pitched over his last 11 starts
and has now let up NEARLY A RUN AN INNING for the better part of two months’
worth of pitching.

Just to put those atrocities in the proper context, Ubaldo’s
7.43 ERA is the second-highest (Houston’s
Dallas Keuchel’s ERA is worse) number for any pitcher in MLB that has thrown
more than 40 innings since the Midsummer Classic. His 1.79 WHIP since the All-Star game is only
“bested” by a couple of Toronto starters (Henderson
Alvarez and Ricky Romero) and Atlanta’s
Tommy Hansen among MLB pitchers with more than 40 innings pitched.

Indians right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez: “It seems like most of the time he wants to be anywhere in the world
but on the mound. He doesn’t give 100 percent very often. He’s become an
embarrassment to himself with his lack of focus and effort.”

Look, maybe the Rockies knew he was damaged goods or that he
was a head case or that his mechanics were simply unsustainable over the long
haul, but the idea that the Indians gave up their top two pitching prospects
for him doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers me to see a pitcher that had
success in MLB (he pitched 851 innings for the Rockies) simply fall off a cliff
upon arrival in Cleveland. Because even
if you invoke TINSTAAPP or posit that Pomeranz and White are ultimately flawed as
starters and are destined for the bullpen at best and the Indians knew it and
looked to “sell high” on each, the way that Jimenez has pitched as an Indian
doesn’t generate much confidence that the organization is going to develop,
much less sustain, pitching excellence, given Ubaldo’s demise.

And that demise and that “lack of focus and effort” is
what’s most troubling, particularly considering what a scout told Perrotto in a
piece that came out this week, with Perrotto passing along these words on Justin Masterson (the other purported “ace”) that…um, don’t elicit a lot of
hope:

Indians right-hander Justin Masterson: “I can’t figure this guy out. He’ll be lights out one time and
you think he’s ready to turn into a legitimate No.1. The next time, he either
gets hit hard or walks the park. The ability is there, so you question the
focus.”

If you’ve watched Masterson at all…does that sound wrong, in
terms of him being “lights out one time”, then either getting “hit hard” or
“walk(ing) the park”?

To put some numbers on that observation, Masterson has
allowed 6 or more earned runs in EIGHT of his 29 starts and has allowed fewer
than 3 runs in FIFTEEN of those starts. So, he’s either very bad or very good and
certainly that may be a result of his mechanics or his “stuff” playing from one
day to the next, but Masterson is as frustrating as Ubaldo in his inability to
find the consistency to put this team on his back every fifth day.

Looking forward, that’s what becomes so disconcerting about
this team, in that these two players – who have had MLB success and were being
counted on to front the rotation – are the same two players that (right now)
look to be at the top of the 2013 Tribe rotation and if the Indians’ manager
(for now) reiterated his previous quote from the Morosi article to Hoynes that “this game is all about pitching,” where does that leave the Indians?

Because that quote from the scout in Hoynes’ear, the one that opines that “they also have to make major changes in their
pitching program…I didn’t see any adjustments being made” rings in my
ears. It sticks because the Indians did
make a concerted effort to add arms – at every level – when they cleared the
decks from 2008 to 2010 and if we’re throwing in what other scouts told John
Perrotto about Masterson (“question the focus”) and Ubaldo (“lack of focus and
effort”), there are some major concerns brewing here about getting talent to
translate to effectiveness.

Carlos Carrasco
started for the Aeros, and if this outing was any indication of what we’re
going to see out of the former top prospect, look out. Carrasco retired the
side in order on 11 pitches (7 strikes), inducing a bunt groundout, striking
out a batter and getting a deep flyout to CF for the final out of the inning.
Carrasco sat consistently between 95-97 MPH with his fastball, touching 98 and
99 once each. His curveball wasn’t too sharp, but it was effective enough
against the AA competition, especially considering the speed differential
between the 87 MPH offering and his high-90’s heat. In case you’re wondering, I
asked the Baysox staff in the pressbox if the radar gun here is juiced, and
they all said that it is a pretty accurate gun. If I had to describe Carrasco’s
outing in one word, that word would be ‘electric’. It’s just one inning, but in
a season when Indians fans need to take any good news they can get, it was a
darn good inning. Carrasco will likely play winterball this offseason and then
return to the Indians rotation out of the gate next year.

Though that has me pulling my old Billy Mumphrey act (becoming “a cockeyed optimist”), the fear is that unless the Indians are able to harness
that undeniable talent and “stuff” from Carrasco going forward, we’re left with
what we’ve seen from the rotation this year, with pitchers regressing…or worse. And the reason for those regressions is what
needs to be sorted out – and in short order – as the Indians are only going to
go as far as their starting pitching takes them. The seasons taking place in Oakland and Tampa
(most notably) are jarring reminders of that, and how (or if) the Indians are
able to piece together a cohesive and effective starting rotation is going to
determine how far they go each and every year.

Their manager, who presided over the most memorable freefall
in recent history, came out of the other side of said freefall spouting (to
anyone who would listen) that “this game is all about pitching” and the Indians
ability/inability to acquire and/or develop talent in starting pitching…then
making the necessary adjustments to maximize said talent is the challenge
facing this organization.

Whether that means better people acquiring those arms or
making those adjustments (or perhaps both) is the question that needs to be
answered in a hurry as the Indians seem to have talent in their starting
pitching ranks, just not talent that’s been effective in the recent past…

Posted by
Paul Cousineau

5 comments:

Paul, Even though we have no pitching, and pitching is the key, I would still strongly consider trading U-bad-o. He has a club friendly contract, which should help his value somewhat, and has had past success. I have no faith in the Indian's ability to "fix him," so I'm in favor of moving him. Some team is going to look at him and feel that they are smart enough to fix what ever is wrong with him. You posted a link earlier in the season of a scout with video that he claimed showed exactly was wrong with him. It just seems to me that the time has come to say we're done with this and move on. I know it won't happen because they gave up 2 no. 1's etc for him, and We'll fix him ourselves..... If Drew and Alex don't ever amount to anything great for the Rockies but maybe an Average MLB pitcher, then what does that say that hasn't already been said about our drafting? If they do trade him do we have any confidence they will get the right players in return?

Wait- trade Ubaldo? Who would want him? I thought I just read a week or two ago that he's the second worst pitcher in the league right now. The Indians may pick up his option but, at this stage, that's probably because the alternatives are worse.

I guess the one thing the Tribe has going for them heading into the off season is the flexibility to make some moves. Even taking a systematic approach, use the salary gained through losing Hafner and Grady to upgrade the offense, and bring in some young arms by trading some key pieces to teams that might need what we have to give...if the brass really do believe that pitching is everything then the focus should be on acquisition, with a view to contention in 2 to 3 years...now if only we could convince them to let you select the players Paul!

CF,As much as I'd like to think that another team would believe that it could "fix" Ubaldo, I think he's our problem to "fix" for the foreseeable future.

David,That flexibility is going to be the big thing to watch because they could make some bold trades - and even add payroll in executing them - because the decks are almost completely cleared. As for me picking the players...well, you don't want that, as evidenced by my Gaby Sanchez target this past off-season.

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